Running a travel agency used to be fairly simple not too long ago. Before people starting researching and planning holidays online, they would simply walk into a local travel business, take a look at a few brochures, and pick a destination.

Today’s travel landscape is markedly different. There are now websites and services such as Booking.com and Airbnb that allow customers to bypass the travel agency and book their lodgings and trips directly. However, that doesn’t mean there is no room for travel companies in this current state of the industry. Quite the opposite. 

Convenience is still the name of the game, and despite the fact that travelers might be able to handle everything on their own, a travel company can significantly ease the burden of planning a trip. This means that a vast majority of travelers are still going to be interested in the services of a travel agency because it’s still all about ease and convenience when it comes to booking a holiday.

Technical SEO Analysis

When we talk about technical SEO we are referring to changes being made “under the hood.” These are usually issues that the untrained eye might not notice, but in the long run, getting these technical aspects of your website fine-tuned will help your SEO tremendously. 

Technical SEO usually includes improving your page speeds and how long it takes your website to load. Travel websites tend to have a lot of pictures, so making sure that all your images are optimized is another big part of technical travel SEO. In today’s day and age, it’s also important to make sure that your website is responsive and can be viewed just as effectively on a mobile device as it can on a desktop computer or laptop. The best part of technical SEO is that most of these fixes are made once by SEO experts and don’t have to be addressed again if everything is done correctly. 

Link Building

Link building is an absolutely essential part of travel SEO, but it’s also one of the most difficult because it’s highly competitive. Link building is a process in which you get high-quality, trusted sites to link back to your website, which in turn establishes your website as an expert in a particular realm in the eyes of Google. Link building might be the biggest reason why you should invest in professional travel SEO services, because a lot of time, effort, and know-how needs to be invested in getting good links for travel SEO.

There are hundreds of ranking factors as part of Google’s algorithm – which factors are applied really come down to target search keywords, indexes and user behaviour. For most travel based searches – the intent will dictate the kind of websites returned. Some of the most weighted SEO factors include:

Property Coverage

If you are looking to rank for property-based searches then it’s likely you’ll need static search result pages listing out all of the properties in a specific location / search type.  One travel SEO factor is likely to include property coverage – if you are trying to rank against competitors with hundreds of properties whilst you only have a handful you are likely to face an uphill battle – therefore long-tail target keywords is a great way to overcome this.

Landing Page Performance & Filtering

If your landing pages load slowly – this will go against your website and its ability to perform. Good core web vitals will be essential on property/travel websites, mainly because the pages are more image rich /. feature-rich, making them more liable to load slowly.

Accessibility of filtering will also have an impact both directly and indirectly. Users should be able to find and use filters on your website without any impedance on user experience.

Content & Content Relevance / Uniqueness

Property and travel websites should have as much independent content as possible. A challenge that a lot of travel websites face is property descriptions which are often duplicated wherever else the property may be listed.

Your travel website should be populated with high quality, descriptive landing page content that fits in with a good UX and causes no obstruction.

Internal & External Links

Good internal linking makes it easier for users to navigate to other useful resources within your website. On property/travel websites this could be linked to travel resources, timetables, weather, currency conversion, home office travel guidance and more.

External links count towards the travel website’s overall domain authority (sometimes referred to as DA).  Travel link building & travel digital PR are vital for earning / generating high quality links that show Google your website is a quality website & trusted. High volumes of quality links is a positive indicator of trust and value.

User Behaviour

User behaviour is likely to be a more weighted factor in travel/property. Websites that offer a good user experience will likely make it easier for users to find what they want, offer a better experience on mobile (i.e. easier to enlarge images / maps etc.). It’s also important to note that user behaviour on travel websites can be an indicator of brand trust, property coverage, pricing and more. Users that regularly bounce / pogo back to Google  where the session duration is very short (less than competitors) could be a sign of poor website user experience, lack of property/travel options & more.

For travel search engine optimisation to be as effective as possible, it’s important to make sure your website aligns with what the keywords return as part of search results. If your competitors have hundreds/thousands of properties and you don’t then the strategy would have to counteract this.

This depends on the coverage of your websites existing non brand keyword profile and current organic state. Most travel / tourism / leisure and accommodation businesses can expect to see organic increases within the first 3-6 months – but, this is really conditional on existing domain health, previous SEO works carried out and more.

Request your free travel SEO quote and we’ll do an upfront assessment on your domain.

I’ve worked with small, medium and large travel brands across the world including Virgin Holidays, Qantas, Easycruise, Holidaycottages.co.uk, Dream Cottages, Snowfinders, Sykes and Coastal Cottages. My background in travel SEO goes back over 20 years!

I’m a highly seasoned SEO specialist who has dealt with the logistics, planning and execution of travel SEO strategies.

I’m reputable, trusted and am an authority in my industry.

SEO Results Delivered For Clients

Daniel Foley has delivered substantial results for businesses across a whole variety of different business verticals/niches from finance and healthcare through to education, home improvement, manufacturing and more.